Regrets

     "I wish I had let myself be happier" . Charles watched as clouds drifted over pristine gardens below and shadows danced between the rosebeds. 

Julie huffed and adjusted the weaved blanket that rested on his useless legs. 

    "Whatever do you mean?" She chirped. "You've had a wonderful, long life Charles" she tucked the corners into the sides of the wheel chair and patted the material down, straightening out any creases. Charles sighed deeply but didn't look up to acknowledge his carer busily working around him. 

    "I wish I had let myself be happier". He repeated. " It was never my dream to be as I am." His fingers on his right hand curled and began clenching and unclenching fists that shook frail wrists. Julie bent down and picked up a pen that had fallen from the chair, turned and put it back on Charles's small writing desk. Must post that, she reminded herself, seeing his will addressed and stamped sitting alone in the middle of the wooden surface. 

    "What was that Charles?" She said turning back to fit him with a bib. Charles did not respond, just sighed a long exhale. After a while of her pottering he spoke again. 

    "There comes a time when you are no longer yourself, no longer your own personality. You are shadows of something that others expect, doomed to forever dance delighted with their depictions of you." He clenched his fist again, shaking this time reaching his shoulder. Julie busied behind him folding fresh towels and placing them in his tiny onsuite.

    "That's interesting Charles" she hummed from across the room. Her tone had dropped to a drone. It usually did after a while, Charles had heard that retort a thousand times. He grimaced, a film of water growing to glisten his tired eyes. Still he stared out the window. To her it must seem like an old fool looking out to the strange new world below. To him however it was not outdoors he was searching, but within, bygone, floating through the mists of a life lived but not lived. 

    "I wish I had let myself be happier" He said, this time with more vigor, a deep pained loss powering the words rising up from his chest. 

    "I am everything to all people. I wish I had explored it all, instead of cowering fearfully before judgement. I wish I had acted obstinately, outrageously, impulsively. Not Shackled by others depictions of responsibility for me, or grounded by those that don't understand how to step away from the system, from society, to get lost in the mist and say fuck you to the machine. I wish I had allowed myself to dream, instead of ticking the boxes I am expected to complete."

    "I wish I had let myself be happier." He whispered, tears dripping silently down onto his weaved uncreased swaddle. 

    "Bohemian. Instead of worrying constantly about how I may be perceived. About work, love, sex, spirituality." His head dropped and eyes creased closed, furrowed lines on his forehead pressed down into his despaired depression and he let out a slight sob.

    "I wish I had let myself be happier."  He whispered to himself. 

A few minutes past, he opened his eyes, lifted and turned his head slightly to look at Julie. She, had continued on, turning pillows, straightening sheet edges, picking up small lint that messed the carpets hundreds had walked on before him. She'd organized his final words to the world, and conversed for what was deemed enough, as was expected of her, and now finished all her chores she looked at her phone and grinned.

He sighed. Closed his eyes. She would not recognize herself either. Shaking his head, he breathed a final, deep, breath. And to her, for her, he plead.  

    "I wish I had chosen to be free."